It's all done with Skype

Oh...oh my God... It's...it's...a new Blog! Okay. So you've gotten tired of the old thing? The video promo for JUST NORTH OF NOWHERE? Right? Okay.

To begin at the beginning.

I'm one of four participants in a roundtable discussion on The StarShipSofa's new site, "The Sofanauts."

StarShipSofa? It's a British s.f. podcast site. Yes. Free. People read science fiction to you for free. Go to www.starshipsofa.com. It's got a year-long backlog of great stuff.

Last year, the editor, one Tony C. Smith, contacted me and said that Gene Wolfe told him to contact me about one of HIS stories to which I had the adaptation rights...

This could go on and on... Okay. I had adapted Gene's "The Tree Is My Hat" and had a recording of the dramatization done at World Horror Con 2002 or so... I gave it to him. I also gave him a few stories of mine that I'd recorded and Tony was kind enough to 'cast them on the Starship. In addition, the site has a great forum whereon authors, critics, readers, fans, and other such folk chat and engage in incredibly decent, civilized discussions about all things s.f, fantasy and, sometimes, horror-related.

Recently, Tony began 'casting a series of weekly roundtable discussions with authors, critics...etc...that he called "The Sofanauts.

I am pleased to say, I just participated in Number 4 of the Sofanaut outings. It's all done by Skype, about which I understand not a lick. However, on Friday, at 10:25 in the morning, my time, and Tony, somewhere in the North of England at 4:25 in his afternoon, Jeremy Tolbert, managing editor of Escape Pod, somewhere in Colorado and somewhere around a yawning 9:25, and Damien G. Walter, writer and commentator for the BBC and the Guardian, abroad in the wilds of London and in Tony's Greenwich time, we all met in a magical place called Skype. We chatted over coffee and buckets -- don't ask! -- and talked and discussed in civilized ways and ranted and had a ball. And me, m'self, snug and safe here in Chicago! Isn't the 21st century the tits!

In any event, stop by and have a listen. You'll find us at: http://sofanauts.com/

And do drop by the StarShip. My work with them begins somewhere in the archives at Aural Delight #40. But there's an awful lot of freeby fun to be had there. Well, if you like s.f. and fantasy and a bit of horror. It's at http://www.starshipsofa.com/

AND I think Tony's going to 'cast another short piece of mine this week. It's that "Read like a Motherfucker" thing I did in Toronto for the brief fiction contest.

Later...